from Hong Kong - Hollywood Reporter

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Inspired by true events
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day1_hk_p3, 6, 22 NEWS1
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< Global Reports:
Hong Kong film, see page 13
France film, see page 17
g o
t o
T H R . c o m / h o n g
k o n g
a n d
T H R - a s i a . c o m
day
1
Dialogue
with Stephen Chow
page 10
M o n d a y, M a rc h 1 7 , 2 0 0 8
from Filmart
Big launch for Big Media
Mark Russell
Celestial
draws line
to Blu-ray
By Karen Chu
By Karen Chu
Celestial Pictures will release its
first Blu-ray Disc title in April, the
classic Leslie Cheung romantic
comedy “Behind the Yellow Line,”
to commemorate the fifth anniversary of his death, the company
announced Monday.
It marks Celestial’s first Shaw
Brothers release on the Blu-ray Disc
high-definition home entertainment format. As with previous
Shaw Brothers releases on DVD,
the film has been remastered. HD
DVD editions of more than half of
the released titles have been available since 2006.
“Line,” made in 1984, revolves
around a series of hide-and-seek
games played in Hong Kong’s thenSee CELESTIAL on page 22
HAF keeps eye
on young talent
By Mark Russell
HONG KONG — The Hong
Kong — Asia Film Financing
Forum (HAF) has grown into one
of the most dynamic and valued sections of the Hong Kong Filmart,
with many of Asia’s biggest filmmakers and most promising upand-comers entering their highly
anticipated new titles.
Now in its sixth edition, this
year’s HAF runs March 17-19, preSee HAF on page 22
Mei Ah unit
will unveil
15-pic slate
Up in the air
The conference floor on Sunday was abuzz with construction and setup
as attendees got ready for the official opening of the market today.
Hong Kong-based production
company Big Media is set to reinvigorate the Chinese-language market by launching a HK$250 million
($32 million) slate of 12-15 projects in Mandarin and Cantonese
this year.
Established as the production
arm of Hong Kong film and TV
group Mei Ah Entertainment, Big
Media has been detached from the
Mei Ah financial structure since the
sale of 21% of its stake to Chinese
investor Brandon Wen in January.
However, Big Media will continue
to utilize Mei Ah’s business network and subsidiaries in China and
Taiwan to foster co-productions
and promote the film industry in
the Greater China region.
To this end, Big Media is adapting a market segmentation strategy
to target markets in Hong Kong,
China, Taiwan and regions further
afield.
Its 2008 projects range from
See BIG MEDIA on page 22
Sundream, Weinstein ‘Visit’ output deal
By Saul Symonds
Sundream Motion Pictures is
embarking on an output deal with
the Weinstein Co. to release their
film and video titles in Hong Kong,
starting with “The Band’s Visit” on
April 10.
Sundream will release TWC’s
titles theatrically but also consider
release through parent company
iCable’s pay TV channels.
“The Band’s Visit” will open on
three Hong Kong screens, followed
by “Teeth” on 10 screens and
“Sicko” on two. All three have
screenings at the Hong Kong International Film Festival, which runs
from today through April 6.
According to Nan Wong, Sun-
dream’s GM of distribution, the
HKIFF screenings help to generate
word-of-mouth publicity among
the desired audience in a competitive exhibition environment dominated by Hollywood blockbusters.
“The current situation in Hong
Kong screen-wise is not really sufficient to support the release of
See SUNDREAM on page 22
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day1_hk_p3, 6, 22 NEWS1
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news
Monday, March 17, 2008
Day 1
Fest turns to past to build its future
By Karen Chu
It may be a mature 32 years old,
and its new boss may be a venerable
senior veteran of the global film festival scene, but the Hong Kong
International Film Festival is a
brighter lure today for young and
upcoming screen talents in the
global ferment than many a newer
worldwide film forum.
And it’s the aim of HKIFF’s newly appointed executive director
Albert Lee to ensure that the big
cinema event continues to attract a
vibrant young audience base while
remaining a champion of Asian cinema.
Lee was invited out of retirement
to assume the post at the beginning
of February, just six weeks before
this year’s festival was scheduled to
start. Undaunted by the mammoth
task of pulling the show together on
an impossibly short deadline, Lee
outlined a vision of the direction he
Hong Kong Daily Edition
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Centre, 1 Expo Drive, Wanchai,
Hong Kong, China
ERIC MIKA
Publisher
ELIZABETH GUIDER
Editor
E D I T O R I A L
DAVID MORGAN
Deputy Editor
JULIE WOOD
Managing Editor
STEVEN SCHWANKERT
Beijing Correspondent
MARK RUSSELL
intends to now take the festival that
he helped create more that three
decades ago.
In a wide-ranging interview with
The Hollywood Reporter, Lee,
lauded as a founding organizer of
the first editions of HKIFF, noted
that the HKIFF audience is generally younger than those for other
international film festivals.
Teenagers and university students
“are our core sector and we cater a
part of our film selection to their
tastes to enlarge our fixed audience
base,” Lee said.
The core business of government-subsidized organizer The
Hong Kong International Film Festival Society, the HKIFF will run
this year from today to April 6. It is
held concurrently with the 6th
Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing
Forum (HAF) today through
Wednesday and the 2nd Asian Film
Awards today.
Lee maintains that the festival has
played an important role in promoting Asian cinema and nurturing the
film-viewing culture in Hong Kong
over the decades. It is the backbone
to which HAF and AFA connect to
enhance the organization’s commitment to Asian cinema, Lee
pointed out.
“HKIFF is a cultural event,
whereas HAF, in lining-up regional
filmmakers and financiers to develop projects, is an industry-related
event that contributes to the Asia
film market,” Lee said. “On the
other hand, AFA recognizes Asian
talents. The events complement
each other in our mission to promote the Asian film industry.”
The executive director post Lee
accepted has been vacant since former head Peter Tsi left last October.
During that time, Tsi’s duties were
Film festival veteran Albert Lee, who was instrumental in HKIFF’s conception,
has stepped back into the breach to fill the void left by the departure of Peter Tsi.
shared by artistic director Li CheukTo and administrator Jannie Ma.
Ma has left the organization since
Lee’s appointment.
Attempts had been made prior to
Lee’s posting to find Tsi’s replacement, but most festival veterans
were reluctant to take on such a
colossal challenge so close to the
festival start date.
A life-long government administrator specializing in culture, Lee
was the chief manager of film and
cultural exchange of the Leisure and
Cultural Services Department,
whose job included running the
Hong Kong Film Archive before he
retired in February 2007. He was
also among the handful of young
government officers and cineastes
that helped create the event back in
1977. He stayed with the HKIFF
office for more than 14 years.
Things are certainly different
from three decades ago, he reflected. Developments in recent years in
HKIFF’s operation — such as the
online booking system in use since
2007 — represent exciting times
for Lee. During the first week of
ticket sales this year, there was more
than a 30% increase of tickets sold
online when compared with the
same period in 2007. Lee sees the
online ticketing service as a demonstration of HKIFF’s appeal to
young film enthusiasts, who make
up a major part of the festival’s
audience.
The popular festival veteran credited the HKIFF for nurturing local
film viewing culture for three
decades, but was also generous to
See LEE on page 22
Korea Correspondent
JULIAN RYALL
Japan Correspondent
KAREN CHU
Hong Kong Correspondent
SAUL SYMONDS
Conferences will focus on Asia issues
Hong Kong Correspondent
R E V I E W S
MAGGIE LEE
Reviewer
ELIZABETH KERR
Reviewer
A R T
+
D E S I G N
DEEANN J. HOFF
Director — Art
A D V E R T I S I N G
ALISON SMITH
International Sales Manager
IVY LAM
Asia Sales & Marketing Manager
TOMMASO CAMPIONE
International Executive Director
Copyright ©2008 Nielsen Business Media, Inc. All rights
reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in any retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or
by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the publisher.
t h r. c o m
los angeles 323/525-2000
ton Fung, secretary general of the
Hong Kong Film Development
Council, Wayne Clarkson, executive director of Telefilim Canada,
and Ted Perkins, production
executive of China's International
Data Group.
The opening ceremony for the
market will be held at 2 p.m., followed by the International
Forum. Keynote speakers will be
Yong Huang, director of China's
Development Research Center of
State Administration of Radio,
Film and TV, as well as its deputy
controller, Wei Jie.
Day two opens with industry
figures from Hong Kong, the
U.S., Korea and China, examining business models and rights
management in an era of filmed
By Julian Ryall
Along with an opportunity to
wheel and deal, the Hong Kong
International Film and TV Market gives participants the numerous opportunities to consider
issues affecting the movie industry in Asia and beyond.
The conference schedule kicks
off Monday at 10 a.m., with seven
panelists considering the pros and
cons of co-productions in Asia. A
growing trend across the region - notably between China and
Hong Kong — the upside is that
films qualify for “local” status in
more than one country and are
eligible for more subsidies and
improved release conditions.
The panelists include Welling-
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entertainment that is available on
multiple platforms.
From 2 p.m., four executives
from Guangdong movie organizations will update delegates on
their market as part of an effort to
enhance cooperation between the
Chinese and Hong Kong film
industries.
Also highlighting potential collaborative projects, the final conference of the day will look at
alliances between the industries in
Japan and Hong Kong.
A single conference is scheduled for the final day of the market. Panelists including TokyoPop
CEO Stuart Levy, will consider
the need for a new business model to inject new life into the making of movies and licensing.
beijing 86/10-6512-5511 (ext. 121)
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Page 1
MORE REVIEWS: “CJ7,” page 21 > “The Way We Are,” page 21 > “Night and Day” page 23
>
THR.com/
hongkong
and
THR-asia.com
Day 1
Monday, March 17, 2008
‘Our Mother’
‘K
ner table is replaced by a photo of
him at his seat.
Yamazaki (Tadanobu Asano),
Tobei’s helpful student, becomes a
beacon in their dark days of poverty and discrimination during the
father’s incarceration. The rest of
the film portrays the mother’s
efforts to hold the family together,
the daily indignities they suffer and
their small assertions of pride.
Interactions with a colorful galley
of relatives and neighbors demonstrate the decency and mean-spiritedness people are capable of. Scenes
of the clumsy Yamazaki crying during a prison visit, an eccentric
uncle’s gruff defiance of the patriotic brigade, and the community
club’s sheeplike emperor-worship
lighten the increasingly sappy narrative development.
Yamada really brings out the tear
t h r. c o m
review
Domestically, “Kabei”
abei — Our Mothdrew largely senior audier,” the latest
ences. Judging from the
blockbuster from prolific
unanimous sobbing and
director Yoji Yamada
extended rounds of ap(“Love and Honor,” the
plause at the Berlinale press
“Tora-san” series), is not
BY
screening, the film might
as artistically refined as his
MAGGIE
find favor with a more varSamurai trilogy but it hits
LEE
ied age group abroad.
all the right spots to make
Originally reviewed
Indeed, Yamada’s lifelong
you cry like when chopin February at the
celebration of ordinary
ping onions. Just as
Berlin International
people who live with digniYamada modernized the
Film Festival
ty and forbearance in ecosamurai genre by making
his heroes family men and
the bottom line nomic or political hardship
could find sympathizers
struggling breadwinners
Old-fashioned,
wartime family
everywhere. Excellent profacing
professional
melodrama with a
duction values deserve
restructuring, “Kabei”
tender humanist
some overseas commercial
authenticates
Japan’s
heart.
theater exposure.
wartime history by show“Kabei” begins in February
ing in quietly chilling detail
how, foreign aggression aside, the 1940, when the Nogami sisters
nation also turned on her own citi- enjoy a meal with their gentle, doting mother and scruffy, intellectual
zens who expressed dissident ideas.
The film is adapted from the best- father. One night, the police arrest
selling autobiography of Teruyo the father for the “thought crime”
Nogami, who was script supervisor of opposing war with China in his
for several of Akira Kurosawa’s films. writings. His absence from the dinlos angeles 323/525-2000
|
new york 646/654-5000
gas in a final scene set in postwar
times, when the bedridden Kabei
drops her stiff upper lip to mutter
an emotionally devastating line.
Regarded as a living icon of Japanese cinema, Sayuri Yoshinaga’s performance is above reproach, but it
does take major suspension of disbelief to see the 63-year-old actress
as a mother of school-age kids.
In a time when historical revisionism is making a comeback
through films like “Yamato” and
“For Those We Love,” which
romanticize militarism and suicide
missions, Yamada’s reconnection
with the classic genre of hahamono
(mother-centered stories) to convey
his moral indignation is a minor
version of Keisuke Kinoshita’s traditional yet progressively humanist
masterpieces like “A Japanese
Tragedy” and “Twenty-four Eyes.”
KABEI — OUR MOTHER
Kabei Film Partners/Shochiku Co. Ltd.
Credits: Director-screenwriter: Yoji Yamada; Co-screenwriter: Emiko Hiramatsu; Based on the book
by: Teruyo Nogami; Producers: Hiroshi Fukasawa, Takashi Yajima; Director of photography: Mutsuo
Naganuma; Production designer: Mitsuo Degawa; Music: Isao Tomita; Costume designer: Kazuo Matsuda; Editor: Ishii Iwao. Cast: Kayo “Kabei”: Sayuri Yoshinaga; Toru Yamazaki: Asano Tadanobu; Hatsuko: Mirai Shida; Teruoyo: Miku Sato; Hisako: Rei Dan; Shigeru Nogami “Tobei”: Bando Mitsugoro.
No MPAA rating, running time 133 minutes
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beijing 86/10-6512-5511 (ext. 121)
AT HONG
KONG FILMART 2008
OFFICE AT HONG KONG CONVENTION & EXHIBITION CENTER: BOOTH # 1L32
George Shamieh Mobile: 818.445.3812 • Chevonne O’Shaughnessy Mobile: 818.355.1083 • www.aci-americancinema.com
AMERICAN CINEMA INTERNATIONAL • 15363 Victory Boulevard, Van Nuys, CA 91406 USA • 818.907.8700
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Monday, March 17, 2008
uring the 1990s, Stephen Chow was the top Hong Kong
comedian who pioneered the nonsense comedic style with
snide wordplay and an undying support for the underdog. A
former kid-show host whose sarcasm earned him the respect
of tween viewers in the late ’80s, the popular actor-comedian
is now an auteur and film icon of Chinese-language cinema.
Chow’s style is as “distinctly unique” as ever, which was how
actor Will Smith described Chow’s creativity. “Only Stephen
Chow makes movies like Stephen Chow,” Smith said during a
recent H.K. visit.
In his latest offering, “CJ7,” the millennia-old concept of
filial piety takes center stage along with an alien dog that
looks like a toy. Chinese audiences have lapped it up — the
film has grossed almost 200 million yuan ($28.2 million)
since its Jan 31 release. In Hong Kong, it has earned HK$52
million ($6.68 million) within a month. Recently, Chow talked
with The Hollywood Reporter’s Karen Chu about his aspirations and thoughts about humanity.
D
The Hollywood Reporter: How
do you feel about the Asian boxoffice results of “CJ7” so far?
Stephen Chow: Of course I am
happy with the good results. But
what matters most to me is that
audiences in different sectors
enjoyed the film, such as families
and women. I am honored that they
appreciated the film.
THR: Do you have any expectations
for the film’s U.S. release?
Chow: In the same way, I hope
(American audiences), especially
non-Chinese, can watch this film
and enjoy it.
THR: What kind of aspirations do
you have in furthering your career in
the U.S.?
Chow: I hope to work with different filmmakers in America because
they are the experts in filmmaking. I
can learn a great deal from them.
THR: How do you think “CJ7” will
attract audiences in the U.S. and other non-Chinese-speaking regions?
Chow: I think with what is common to humanity, such as family, the
struggle for survival in difficult situations, or the dreams you have had
since you were a child. … Simply
put, I hope to touch the lives of the
people who see my films.
THR: Your earlier films put an
emphasis on wordplay and had a
strong local flavor that was not easy
to translate; your recent works has
focused instead on physical comedy
and visual humor. Now, “CJ7” is a
family film with sci-fi film elements
and steered away from comedy.
Did this change of direction stem
from a consideration for regional
appeal?
Chow: I think physical comedy or
deriving humor from the plot is
much more difficult than playing
with words. They also take more
time and effort to set up. But I want
to make people laugh. I want people
to understand the story. This is one
of the arrangements.
THR: “Shaolin” and “Kung Fu” can
be interpreted as critiques and reflections on modernization. In “CJ7,”
your character is a poor laborer who
lives in a dilapidated and ancientlooking house and makes a living on
the construction sites of cosmopolitan skyscrapers, and who meets his
demise in the process. Are you trying
to give a message to the world about
Chinese traditions or warn against
modernization?
Chow: Strictly speaking, those
aren’t critiques, only something I
imagine. I don’t have any right to
pass judgment. But we encounter a
lot of interesting situations in real
life. For instance, we live in high-rise
apartment buildings, but we never
remember to be grateful to the construction workers who build them;
athletes strive to improve performance at the expense of sportsmanship and their own health. These are
not issues specific to a particular
place, but something we should all
ponder.
THR: Visual effects play a great part
in your recent work. Most of the
production budget of “CJ7” was
dedicated to the special effects and
digital animation of an alien, making
the film the most expensive ($20
million) you’ve done. What drew
you to the effects element?
Chow: Special effects are amazing
things. They bring my imagination
to life, which used to take a huge
amount of money and effort. More
importantly, effects make a film
look better; the audience will enjoy
it more. This is the best thing
about effects.
Date of birth: June 22, 1962
Nationality: Chinese (Hong Kong)
Selected Filmography: “CJ7” (2008)
Stephen Chow
“Kung Fu Hustle” (2004); “Shaolin Soccer”
(2001); “The King of Comedy” (1999);
“God of Cookery” (1996); “A Chinese Odyssey Part One: Pandora’s Box”
(1994); “A Chinese Odyssey Part Two: Cinderella” (1994);
“Justice, My Foot!” (1992)
Notable Awards: 2005 Taiwan Golden Horse Awards: Best Director
(“Kung Fu Hustle”); 2001 Hong Kong Film Awards: Best Director, Best
Actor, Outstanding Young Director (“Shaolin Soccer”)
vital stats
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THR: Jackie Chan is the best-known
Hong Kong actor in the U.S. Do you
strive to reach the level of Chan’s
fame in the U.S. and Europe?
Chow: I only want to make good
movies for audiences, Chinese or foreign. As to comparisons or whatever,
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those are other people’s concern.
THR: You had a meeting with Will
Smith to discuss a future project
when he came to Hong Kong to
promote “I Am Legend” in December. Is he going to participate in
your upcoming remake of “Journey
to the West”? How is that project
coming along?
Chow: We had a wonderful chat
and a great rapport. There’s a
project that we’re planning to
work on together. But we are still in
negotiations.
THR: How will this new “Journey to
the West” differ from your previous
adaptation of the same story? Which
role will you play?
Chow: The new version of the
“Journey to the West” will be more
faithful to the original story than my
previous version. I guarantee it will
be even better. As for the character
I’m going to play, we are still trying
to decide. I hope it will give everyone a surprise.
more online
More dialogue with
Stephen Chow at
THR.com/hongkong
beijing 86/10-6512-5511 (ext. 121)
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special report:
hong kong
Monday, March 17, 2008
Day 1
Dog Days:
Menfond Electronic Art
created a digitally
animated alien
dog for Stephen
Chow’s “CJ7.”
FX
APPEAL
By Karen Chu
From talking vegetables to alien dogs,
Hong Kong’s visual effects industry is
giving Hollywood a run for its money
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I
t is almost impossible to overlook the emergence of visualeffects-heavy films in recent
Hong Kong cinema. Since the
beginning of the new millennium,
local films have displayed visual
effects and animation styles as
diverse as the exaggerated, comicbook-style action sequences of
2001’s “Shaolin Soccer” and
2004’s “Kung Fu Hustle,” the
bloody and realistic battles of last
year’s “Warlords” and the fantasy
world of 2005’s “Chinese Tall
Story” — not to mention the
unique digital creatures featured
in 2007’s “Secret of the Magic
Gourd” (a talking vegetable) and
this year’s “CJ7” (a furry animal
from space).
In fact, Hong Kong effects
work has become so advanced
that it is increasingly difficult to
spot the effects.
“As more big-scale movies
develop in China, and the fact that
they can easily gross more than
100 million yuan ($14 million),
Chinese producers are more willing to set aside a part of their
budgets for visual effects,” says
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Paws and Effect:
Menfond Electronic Art’s effects work on “CJ7”
marked a breakthrough for both the company
and the Hong Kong postproduction sector.
Eddy Wong, CEO and director of Menfond
Electronic Art.
Menfond, founded in 1990, is the effects
house behind the endearing title character of
the Stephen Chow-directed local hit “CJ7”
— an alien dog with a fluffy head and halftransparent elastic body that blends in with
Chow’s storytelling style.
The little furry alien dog marked a breakthrough for the studio and the local digital
effects industry, but across Hong Kong, studios big and small are making breakthroughs
of their own. FatFace Prods., the aggressive 3year-old company credited with the effects
work in Peter Chan’s “Warlords” and headed
by industry veteran Ng Yuen-fai, is in charge
of creating a virtual world in the style of last
year’s international blockbuster “300” for the
just-announced “Storm Riders II” from
brother directors Danny and Oxide Pang,
scheduled for release in late 2009.
The Universe Entertainment adaptation of
the popular 1980s comics, with a budget of
HK$100 million ($12.8 million), will be
completely shot in front of bluescreens with
the scenery and sets added in postproduction.
This is the first film in Hong Kong to try the
stylistic innovation, but former colleagues Ng
and Danny Pang say “Storm Riders II” will
take the style a step further by merging virtual
world surroundings with effects-generated
combat moves and action sequences.
For the Hong Kong effects industry, there
are still more boundaries to be broken. What
greater boundary can there be than dimensional? The greatest leap of the local CGI industry
is being taken by Centro Digital Pictures, the
pioneer of Hong Kong postproduction effects
and CG animation, established 21 years ago.
“3-D is the latest frontier, and we are at the
cutting edge of technology,” says John Chu,
founder and CEO of Centro, which is introducing state-of-the-art stereoscopic 3-D filming, postproduction and conversion services to
Hong Kong. The first in the territory to do so,
Centro spent a year developing the skills and
installing the 3-D technology in its 20,000square-foot office at Hong Kong Cyberport,
including a 3,000-square-foot screening room
with 3-D projection capabilities.
“2009 will be the year of the stereoscopic
3-D films,” Chu says. “Cinemas are being
converted in the thousands around the world;
there’s a demand for content. This is the perfect time to produce stereoscopic films of our
own in Asia.”
There are five theaters with stereoscopic
screening facilities in Hong Kong.
Centro is in discussions with an undisclosed
international studio and Chinese partner to
develop the first Chinese-language 3-D film,
an action-heavy live-action retelling of a historical story with a budget upward of
HK$100 million.
Last year, Centro produced the first Chinese co-production with Disney, the liveaction adaptation of the renowned Chinese
children’s story “Secret of the Magic Gourd.”
The title character is the first digitally made
creature in a Chinese-language film.
“There are a lot of themes in Chinese culture and historical action stories that are best
told in 3-D,” Chu declares. “Our strengths in
the action genre can also be pushed to the hilt
in 3-D.”
3-D conversion is not unprecedented for
local effects houses. Menfond previously
worked with U.S. effects giant Industrial
Light + Magic on the labor-intensive 2-D-tostereoscopic conversion of Tim Burton’s
“Nightmare Before Christmas 3-D” (2006).
However, Centro’s latest foray into stereoscopy is the first time a local studio is offering
a full stereoscopic filming and postproduction
service.
Indeed, the name Centro eventually comes
up in all conversations about the history and
development of the Hong Kong visual effects
industry. FatFace’s Ng, a Centro alumnus,
describes the company as the “Shaolin Temple” of the Hong Kong effects industry —
from the Chinese saying, “All disciplines of
martial arts in the world originated from
Shaolin.” Many of the leading local visual
effects artists have done a stint at Centro,
learned the basics and honed their skills
before venturing out on their own.
But while Centro currently leads the Hong
Kong effects sector, as the demand for special
effects and animation grows with the new
innovations in technology, more studios are
emerging to offer stylistic innovations and
diversity.
“There are more choices for film companies
and directors,” Ng says. “When there were
only one or two effects studios, the projects
got piled up — quality might be affected.
Now the new studios all have different
strengths: Some are more creative; others
“Cinemas are being converted in the thousands
around the world; there’s a demand for content.
This is the perfect time to produce stereoscopic
films of our own in Asia.”
— John Chu, founder and CEO of Centro
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Busts,
Caution
Hong Kong’s piracy
crackdown yields results,
but concerns remain
ong Kong’s battle with piracy rivals the fierce
onscreen clashes of hit boxoffice epics. And the good
guys seem, for the moment at least, to be winning. Pirate
retailers are down to about 40 at any one time from a 1999
high of more than 1,000, and record judgments are being
handed down by Hong Kong courts.
Financial penalties imposed might not be large, but
lawmakers are sending “a very clear message that piracy
is viewed seriously in Hong Kong,” says Mike Ellis, the
MPA’s Asia-Pacific senior vp and regional director.
At the same time, no one is ignoring the major challenge looming. “The big cloud on the horizon in Hong
Kong — indeed a lot of places — is Internet piracy,” Ellis
says. “It’s difficult to measure the extent exactly, but …
Internet connections are becoming faster, technology is
being upgraded, and as that happens, illegal downloads
are going to be more of a threat to our member companies’ interests.”
Legislative relief is probably two or more years away.
Hong Kong’s Commerce and Economic Development
Bureau is preparing a digital review of copyright legislation. A draft bill may be submitted to the Hong Kong
Legislative Council toward the end of this year or in early
2009, but the government has not specified a timeline on
the issue.
Ellis describes the process as “crucial.” “If the (Hong
Kong) government gets the balance right and legislates to
protect digital content and provide mechanisms that will
allow rights holders to protect their own rights, it could
have a profound positive effect on online piracy over the
next few years.”
North of Hong Kong’s borders, hard goods piracy is
down slightly because of official cleanup efforts ahead of
the Beijing Olympics. A second reason is that the threshold for criminal prosecution was cut from 1,000 discs to
500 discs in April last year. However, Internet piracy is way
up and rising as the local IT industry develops.
MPA member company revenue losses in China in
2005 were $244 million, according to a study undertaken
by independent research firm LEK Consulting on behalf of
the MPA. Losses in Hong Kong for the same year were
$4 million. Of the estimated $6.1 billion in lost revenue to
the studios in 2005, about $1.2 billion came from piracy
across the Asia-Pacific region, the MPA says.
“While they have not made an enormous amount of
progress last year, there has been some improvement.
We hope more will be done this year,” Ellis says.
New regulations and a reorganization of ministries
under China’s State Council later this year are likely to
make the largest impact on eroding piracy over the next
year or so. Best-case scenarios include a structure that
encourages criminal action against pirates.
Ellis’s expectations are, however, moderate. “Piracy
levels across China remain very high and will continue to
be a major source of losses for the MPA member companies for some time to come,” he says.
— Janine Stein
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better at the technical aspects.”
Adds Menfond director (and brother of Eddy)
Victor Wong: “Different visual effects production
companies have their own expertise in different
areas. Different directors will, based on their
needs, select a visual effects production company
to best fit their film.”
Competing with the U.S. is another matter.
Hollywood has the definite advantage of faster
technological development, not only because of
its proximity to Silicon Valley, but also “because
the effects artists have more opportunities to
work on big-scale projects with money to spare,”
Menfond’s Eddy Wong says.
However, Hong Kong’s CGI studios are catching up, explains Victor Wong: “In the past 10
years, Hong Kong visual effects studios developed
a good foundation for visual effects because Hong
Kong and directors such as Tsui Hark (2005’s
‘Seven Swords’) pioneered visual effects as one of
the necessary elements in their movies. We are not
competing with U.S. visual effects production;
instead, we are working hand-in-hand with each
other to create projects that would not be possible
in the past.”
CGI industry insiders cite time, human
resources and money as the most important factors in expanding Hong Kong’s special effects
industry, but Eddy Wong says this is another area
in which local effects houses are improving.
“More Chinese-language projects with bigger
budgets are being developed so that we can
bring in foreign experts to supervise and bring
valuable new knowledge,” he says.
Another way to add an edge to local effects
productions is to bring distinctive cultural influences into play. To this end, local digital effects
Centro Digital Pictures’
Hong Kong Cyberport facility
includes a 3,000-square-foot
theater with stereoscopic 3-D.
and animations studios are turning to their Chinese roots for inspiration. Creativity is the keyword for innovative visual effects and animation
artists in the territory.
Similar to a decade ago when Hollywood
injected new blood into the action genre by
enlisting the help of Hong Kong action directors
to reinvent action styles with gravity-defying wire
work and kung fu-inspired moves, local effects
artists are using their Chinese cultural heritage
and artistic and visual influences to offset the
technological advantage of deep-pocketed Hollywood effects houses.
“We are exposed to visual influences different
from our Western counterparts, which fuel our
imagination and lead us to create images unique
to our culture,” explains FatFace’s Ng. Apart
from local comic book adaptations, ancient
myths and legends often present an ideal context
for imaginative effects work.
he small screen is ready for its closeup at the Hong Kong
Filmart. Despite the fact that “film” is right there in the name of
the event, television will be one of the focuses this year, according
to organizers of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council.
The number of exhibitors of the second edition of the TV World
pavilion has increased to 130 from 88 last year, a significant 48%
increase as compared with the 7% growth of the overall number of
exhibitors at Filmart.
TV World was initiated in 2007 by the Hong Kong Televisioners
Assn. to create an international platform for the local television
broadcasters to promote and interact with foreign counterparts.
“Hong Kong cinema is famous around the world, but the Hong
Kong television industry has just as large an audience,” says Tsui
Siu-ming, president of HKTVA. “As Hong Kong television products gain in international profile, it is necessary for us to establish
an expo devoted to the television industry.”
Regional broadcasters such as China’s CCTV, Japan’s Fuji TV
Network, Korea’s KBS, Hong Kong’s TVBI, ATV and i-Cable have
booths in this year’s TV World pavilion, as well as Germany’s
ARRI, Ceska TV from the Czech Republic and Maxim Media International and Imagination Worldwide from the U.S.
The seminar topics highlight the opportunities and challenges
presented to today’s television broadcaster, including the media
convergency prospects at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, as well as
the development and business opportunities of new digital media.
“The challenges and new opportunities faced by the television industry reflect the market trends after ‘China entered
the world and the world entered China’ — and the advent of the
digital age,” Tsui says.
TV World underlines the advantages the Hong Kong television
industry has over its Chinese and overseas counterparts, Tsui
adds. “Media organizations from all around the world have entered
or are trying to enter China, including overseas and Hong Kong
television channels,” he says. “Compared with Chinese broadcasters, members of the Hong Kong television industry have a
wider international vision; at the same time, producers in Hong
Kong have a better understanding of the Chinese market than any
other country.”
Developments in new media such as webcasting and mobile
TV also represent a significant opportunity for the further expansion of the Hong Kong TV sector.
— Karen Chu
“There are ancient Chinese myths and historical epics that can only be done justice with the
most advanced and realistic visual effects,”
acknowledges Eddy Wong.
For example, Menfond is set to produce the
effects in a large-scale unannounced mythological trilogy based on one of the most celebrated
and colorful legends in Chinese culture, as well
as an Indian production based on an Indian
myth.
But this doesn’t mean these elaborate films are
made simply to show off fancy effects work. As
most effects artists agree, the new technologies
at their disposal should always be used to serve
the movie as a whole. “There’s no point if a
movie only exists to show off the special effects,”
Centro’s Chu says. “We always encourage directors to shoot real objects if they exist in real life.
Effects should only be used appropriately, not in
all situations.”
•
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Day 1
“La Vie en Rose”
Is the Gallic
film sector
abandoning
its auteur
roots for
boxoffice
glory?
P
ARIS — Commercially successful
films like “La Vie en Rose” may be
all the rage overseas, but back
home, France’s local film industry is continuing to produce its famed art house
fare. After an awards season sweep catapulted French cinema into the spotlight
this year, will the Gallic film sector be
able to hold on to its auteur tradition, or
will the pull of the international market
be too strong to resist?
On one hand, French cinema is struggling to maintain its title as the “seventh
art form”; on the other, French producers are realizing that cinema isn’t merely
an artistic channel, but also a great way
to make money.
“The cinema has become, in France, a
mature and adult profession,” says Alain
Terzian, president of France’s Academy of
Film Arts and Sciences. “It used to be
simply cultural, now it’s a real industry.
French films have doubled their market
share in just 10 years — that’s incredible.”
Local cinema represented a 36.5%
market share among theatrical releases
in 2007, according to annual estima-
By Rebecca Leffler
FRENCH
CONCESSION
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tions by French government film body Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC).
“For the past few years, French cinema has been daring to do everything,” declares Alain Attal of Les Productions du Trésor. “In the past, there
was just artistic, auteur cinema; now there are special effects, thrillers, science fiction, horror. Our national cinema is taking up so much of the market because we’re daring to do everything.”
However, daring doesn’t always mean profitable. While French films are
flourishing abroad, risky investments at home are counterbalancing the
country’s film producing savoir-faire.
Many French producers took risks last year with megabudget productions
that ended up tanking at the boxoffice. Studio Canal laid out €30.4 million
($46.7 million) for Jean-Jacques Annaud’s “His Majesty Minor,” a mythological comedy starring Vincent Cassel and José Garcia that attracted fewer
than 200,000 filmgoers.
Alain Corneau’s “The Second Wind,” distributed in Gaul by ARP, sold
under 500,000 tickets despite its €21.1 million ($32.4 million) budget,
strong ad campaign and an all-star cast that included Monica Bellucci and
Daniel Auteuil. Other boxoffice disappointments include EuropaCorp’s
€15 million ($23 million) “The Last Gang,” which sold fewer than
300,000 tickets, and Algerian war-drama “Intimate Enemies,” which took
in under 500,000 tickets.
French film industry insiders worry about the growing disparity between
costly commercial productions and low-budget art house fare (films with
budgets under €4 million/$6.1 million). Even CNC admits to a “bipolarization of films” over the past several years.
“On one side, there are small-budget films and on the other big-budget
titles, while the gap in between — namely films with budgets between €4
million ($6.1 million) and €7 million ($10.7 million), aka ‘middle movies’
— is widening,’” says CNC president Véronique Cayla.
In the face of bipolarization, CNC has made concerted efforts to decrease
the gap between the big-budget commercial fare and the obscure minibudget movies relegated to a handful of screens. In 2007, 30 films were
made in the mid-budget category, representing 16.5% of total investments
(including CNC funds, television presales, regional funds and independent
producers) compared with the state film body’s 11.7% investment in 2006.
Additionally, 186 French
films were produced in
I think it’s possible to
2007, just shy of 2005’s
make films of artistic
record of 187, for a record
€1 billion ($1.5 billion).
quality whose budget
The number of films in the
can be reimbursed by
territory selling more than
100,000 tickets has also
ticket sales. I don’t make
been steadily climbing: In
movies for people to
just 10 years, the number
jumped from 162 to 223
watch in the bathroom.”
films. Still, 75% of the ticket
— Mabrouk el Mechri, sales in France come from
director 17% of films.
Despite fears that French
producers are focusing more on the multiplex than the art house, Cayla says
films that target larger audiences actually end up benefiting the country’s
signature ‘small’ pictures.
“Of course there are particularly popular films that attract large crowds
and (that is fortunate), since it’s thanks to those films that we can redistribute funds in favor of more fragile or daring films, which sometimes have
trouble getting made,” Cayla says.
The French refer to this redistribution of funds as the “exception culturelle” — the idea that culturally significant products must be protected.
The CNC provides sets quotas on non-French audiovisual “product,” while
a percentage of all boxoffice receipts is used to fund new movies.
Lately, the CNC’s investment in small-budget art house fare has been paying off. Nadine Labaki’s Franco-Lebanese “Caramel,” produced by Les Films
des Tournelles with a €1.9 million ($3 million) budget, sold 505,507 tickets,
making it this year’s second most profitable film in the territory. Julie Delpy’s
quirky dramedy “2 Days in Paris” sold nearly 300,000 tickets with a budget of
€1.2 million ($1.9 million). Other auteur titles seeing boxoffice success in proportion to low budgets include Eric Guirado’s “The Grocer’s Son” (336,702
ticket sold); Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s award-winning, transAtlantic “Persepolis” (more than 1.2 million tickets sold); Valérie Guignabodet’s “Dance with Him” (1 million tickets sold). Then there’s Stéphane
Brizé’s “Between Adults,” which, at nearly 50,000 tickets sold, is quite an
accomplishment considering the film was made for €23,000 ($35,642).
French cinema has taken Hollywood by storm over the past few years,
from Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “Amélie” in 2001 to this year’s “La Vie en Rose”
awards season haul. “At first we’d say ‘It’s a miracle!’ ‘It’s an exception.’
Now, these miracles and exceptions have been repeating each other so
much we say it’s a commercial vocation unto itself,” says Margaret Menegoz, president of the French film promotion organization Unifrance.
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Not-So-Funny
Business
Popular, locally-produced French comedies
fail to tickle the ribs of international buyers
hat do a displaced postal worker, a happy widower, retired vacationers and
cocaine-addicted advertising execs have in common? Absolutely nothing,
other than the fact that they all made French filmgoers laugh last year and scored
big at the Gallic boxoffice. Danny Boon’s “Welcome to the Land of the Shtis” (pictured above) recently made French film history, selling 4.4 million tickets during its
first week of release, the best opening ever for a French film in the territory.
“Shtis” follows a postal worker from Southern France after he relocates to a
small northern town and is forced to adapt to the local customs. Ironically, while
such a fish-out-of-water tale might see huge laughs on its native turf, the success doesn’t typically translate to the overseas boxoffice, where most French
comedies tend to sink rather than swim. “Shtis” has been sold to Canada, Belgium and Switzerland, but has yet to find a distributor in the U.K. or U.S.
“Jokes that are language-based are hard to translate for the international
market,” says Adeline Fontan Tessaur, head of sales and acquisitions at new
international sales agent Elle Driver.
Adds Unifrance president Margaret Menegoz: “Comedy is something very
local. It’s the same in France as it is in Italy, Spain, Russia. There are even very
few American comedies that work all over the world. Humor is something profoundly national — audiences don’t have the same reactions to comedy from
one country to another. It’s always been like this.”
Elsewhere, Isabelle Mergault’s sophomore comedy “The Merry Widow” sold
1.7 million tickets during its mid-January release in France, despite mediocre
reviews from critics both at home and abroad. And while Jan Kounen’s “99
Francs” sold 1.2 million tickets in its home country, the acerbic comedy hasn’t
made any francs (or euros for that matter) from sales to the U.K. or the U.S.
So why continue to make such nationally inclusive fare if the rest of the world
isn’t laughing?
“Producers take what they can get. The boxoffice is the boxoffice; whether
they make money in France or in the U.S., it’s money,” Menegoz says.
But just because a comedy may not be exportable, that doesn’t mean its
remake rights are off limits. Take the 2006 comedy “Jean-Philippe,” a fictional
fantasy based on real-life rock sensation Johnny Hallyday, which sold 1.3 million tickets at the Gallic boxofficehold. The humor in the film played upon Hallyday’s celebrity, a joke clearly lost on international audiences unfamiliar with “the
French Elvis.” “We knew we couldn’t sell ‘Jean-Philippe’ internationally because
it’s about Johnny Hallyday — it’s very ‘franco-francais,’ ” says producer Marc
Fiszman. “But the concept of the film — a big star who wakes up in a parallel
world where he’s no longer a star — is exportable. If you look at all of the
French films that have been remade in the U.S., most of them are comedies.
Their concepts are exportable.”
Francis Veber’s comedies, though appreciated by the American public in
their native tongue, are also in the process of being transformed into U.S.
movies. A number of the prolific director’s films have already been successfully
remade — such as 1996’s “The Birdcage” — with more on the way, including
his 2006 hit “The Valet,” which will get a Farrelly brothers face-lift, and the 1998
cult comedy “The Dinner Game,” with Sacha Baron Cohen attached.
“Comedy is of course very country-specific, but I have a feeling that French
directors are less condescending to this genre than they’ve been in the past,
which might just bring us some nice surprises in the near future,” says MK2
producer Charles Gilibert.
— Rebecca Leffler
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“There are still challenges in the U.S. Marketplace for French films, specifically the very tough
DVD and television markets for subtitled films
of any kind,” adds Picturehouse president Bob
Berney. “That said, the success of ‘La Vie en
Rose’ is a really positive indicator that these films
can find a larger audience.”
But can French films continue to be commercially sound, critically acclaimed and travelfriendly films? Menegoz believes they can,
adding that the new French cinema has carved a
distinct place for itself in Gaul’s storied filmmaking history.
“It used to be a battle between the ‘seventh
art’ and commercial cinema,” she says. “Over
the past few years, we’ve invented a third genre:
auteur cinema with a commercial appeal.”
MK2 producer Charles Gillibert agrees: “ ‘La
Vie en Rose’ was simply an auteur film that found
its public. French filmmakers have always made
this type of movie and can continue to shock and
surprise the world without losing their identity.”
Even France’s most daring auteurs of the
moment have been at the helm of commercial
projects starring famous faces and featuring story lines and special effects designed to appeal to
wider audiences. Director Jan Koenen, famous
for against-the-grain films such as 1997’s
“Dobermann” and 2004’s “Blueberry,” fused
his radical filmmaking technique with a bigbudget comedy designed for mass public appeal
with last year’s “99 Francs.” The acerbic comedy, based on the cult novel by Frédéric Beigbeder, sold 1.2 million tickets in its home country.
“99 Francs”
Elsewhere, Mathieu Kassovitz began his
career on the creative, low- budget end of the
spectrum with the politically charged “Hate”
in 1995. These days Kassovitz is in the process
of following up his English-language thriller
“Gothika” with “Babylon A.D.,” a megabudget, effects-laden Studio Canal-Fox co-production starring Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh and
Melanie Thierry.
“It’s taken us the past 10 years in France to
realize we can make a lot of money with movies,”
Kassovitz says. “French cinema has become
much more concerned with the spectator.”
Contemporary French film directors like
Kassovitz are learning how to combine the freedom of European auteur cinema with the production benefits and effective marketing strategies of their friends across the Atlantic.
“It’s a will on the part of the auteurs to
approach the public,” Menegoz says. “I don’t
know any directors today who aren’t impressed
by the number of people who see their films. The
liberty of a director comes from the success of his
films in theaters.”
Adds Mabrouk el Mechri, director of Gaumont’s upcoming Jean-Claude Van Damme pic
“JCVD”: “The success of one film buys the liberty of the next one. It’s as if you pay the bail for
your next movie. I think it’s possible to make
films of artistic quality whose budget can be
reimbursed by ticket sales. I don’t make movies
for people to watch in the bathroom.”
But can even the most commercial Gallic titles
compete with Hollywood?
“It’s going to be very hard to compete if the
films are in French,” Berney says. “The U.S.
market is still reluctant to accept dubbing and
subtitles on a wide basis. That said, one film
could change that as we have seen in a film like
‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ that really broke out and overcame the language issue.”
Whether or not future Gallic productions will
experience the same global success as “La Vie en
Rose,” the country’s prolific film industry hopes
to continue to foster a fusion between its auteur
tradition and money-making savvy. “It’s true
that in France, we consider our cinema to be an
art,” Cayla says. “But we also consider it to be an
industry! It’s this double nature of cinema as a
cultural industry that makes France unique and
makes it so that films for us are not just commodities.”
•
FILM SPOTLIGHT:
“I Always Wanted to
Be a Gangster”
e always wanted to be a gangster. However, best-selling novelist Samuel
Benchetrit had to settle for writer-director of an award-winning movie instead.
All is not lost since Benchetrit, whose acerbic black-and-white comedy “I Always
Wanted to Be a Gangster” won the World Cinema Screenwriting Award at this
year’s Sundance Film Festival, says making movies has its parallels to the world
of crime. “Making a movie is sort of like a holdup,” he says, “in the sense that a
filmmaker steals from people — their money, their emotions, their feelings.”
The film saw its production problems read like a page out of its own book of
comedic sketches. First, Benchetrit’s lead actor, Sergi López, broke his leg just
weeks before shooting started and had to be replaced by Edouard Baer. Later, the
film’s set — an old cafeteria near a motorway in the outskirts of Paris — burned
down, suspending filming for two months.
Nevertheless, the film’s producers, Fidélité and Wild Bunch, remained loyal to the
young director, and Benchetrit finished his film with additional financial support from
Canal Plus. Released in Gaul by Mars Distribution, “Gangster” is already generating
buzz in the territory before its March 26 release date.
The movie, which stars Benchetrit’s own real-life love, actress Anna Mouglalis,
alongside Baer and veteran thespian Jean Rochefort, follows the exploits of a number of hapless, would-be criminals, including two amateur thieves (Mouglalis and
Baer), two kidnappers, a singer suffering from writer’s block who steals a colleague’s compositions, and five 70-year-olds (Rochefort included) who come out of
retirement to attempt to rob the local McDonald’s.
“I really wrote for everyone who is in the movie, and they all accepted their roles —
which was amazing considering I couldn’t pay any of my actors,” Benchetrit says of
his 2.8 million ($4.3 million) budget.
“I made this movie with so little money that I feel completely free about its
release. We don’t need to sell millions of tickets. If I had wanted to sell millions of
tickets, I definitely wouldn’t have made this film,” he adds.
The movie has been described by critics as a sort of homage to old American
crime movies, which Benchetrit says is no accident. “I never went to film school, so
the film is filled with references to other movies. When I’m addressing my crew, in
the same sentence, I can talk about Jacques Doillon and (1984’s) ‘The Terminator.’
It’s called ‘I Always Wanted to Be a Gangster,’ but it could have been called ‘I
Always Wanted to Make a Movie.’ ”
— Rebecca Leffler
H
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DAY1_revCJ7_The Way_EDIT C
8:20 PM
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reviews
Monday, March 17, 2008
‘CJ7’
A
review
Day 1
3/16/08
comic trio formed by
a poor workman, his
son and his alien pet drive
BY
the story of “CJ7,” a
MAGGIE
hyperactive, wishful-thinkLEE
ing special-effects fantasy
suitable for family outings.
Originally
It is the long-awaited
reviewed in
February at the
brainchild of Stephen
Berlin International
Chow, the comedianFilm Festival
writer-director who pioneered the unique Hong
the bottom line
Kong genre of mo lei tau
An effects-driven
fantasy with
(nonsensical) comedy in
much cuteness
the early 1990s.
but not enough
Despite Chow’s selfpersonality.
professed desire to salute
“E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” and oblique borrowings from visual effects stand in for gags,
Japanese anime “Doraemon,” the Chow’s strong Asian fan base is still
sci-fi classic “Invasion of the Body flocking to the theaters. ConvincSnatchers” springs foremost to ing a North American audience
mind as Chow’s one-of-a-kind mag- more familiar with Jackie Chan and
netic screen persona seems to have Jet Li and more likely to prefer
been abducted by aliens who Chow’s more exotic and actionreplaced him with a pod that spouts packed “Shaolin Soccer” and
moral platitudes and expresses CGI- “Kung Fu Hustle” won’t be so
easy, though.
enhanced emotions.
This is Chow’s first directorial
A joint effort by Chow’s Star
Overseas and Columbia Pictures work shot entirely in China, but
Film Production Asia, “CJ7” has geographic and cultural character
worldwide release ambitions; it look fuzzy. He plays Ti, a construcbowed stateside on March 7. Even tion laborer who pays through the
with Chow’s trademark smart-ass nose to send his only son, Dicky (Xu
Cantonese neologisms and Hong Jiao), to an elite school. Dicky’s
Kong’s ineffable local color filtered street-urchin looks make him a tarout while proficiently rendered get for bullying. Only his teacher,
Miss Yuen (Kitty Zhang), shows
some kindness.
Dicky wants his classmate’s cyber
toy CJ1, but the impoverished
Chow finds him a scrap-yard substitute that he names CJ7. The flourescent-green blob morphs into a creature with a fluffy mane and a bouncy, squishy torso. Dicky dreams of
impressing his classmates with alien
high-tech gizmos but ends up thoroughly humiliated. However, when
an accident happens, CJ7 reveals its
hidden powers.
The first half-hour depicts fatherson relations with a mischievous
charm reminiscent of Chow’s early
films. Xu, an actress who portrays
Dicky, is the one who holds the film
‘The Way
We Are’
review
Like her “The
Postmodern Life
of My Aunt,”
Ann Hui’s new
film is sympathetic to aging woBY
men fending for
MAGGIE
themselves in urLEE
ban society. But
she moves down a
the bottom line few octaves from
the flamboyant
A serene and
sincere portrayal of
and at times hysworking-class
terical “Postmodwomen.
ern” to observe,
with a pace that ebbs
and flows as naturally as time, the
unsung stoicism of Hong Kong’s
grassroots. Shot on HD in a transparent documentary style, “The Way We
Are” evokes the poignancy and
humanity in Ozu’s works without
straining for his formalist aesthetics.
Despite persistent recognition of
Hui’s artistic integrity, her works
largely owed their market profile to
having superstars (like Chow Yun
Fat or Vicky Zhao) attached. The
expedient adoption of the digital
medium and a no-star cast in “Way”
t h r. c o m
toils in a supermarket while her son
On languishes in post-exam inertia.
Though too busy to pay regular visits to her hospitalized mother, she is
a surrogate daughter to a new hand
at work. Their trip to meet the old
lady’s grandson is reminiscent of
“Tokyo Story” in expressing the
modest hopes of one generation and
crushing disappointment of another. Kwai is played without a trace of
acting by Paw Hee Ching, a TV veteran once a leading actress for leftist
Hong Kong studio Great Wall.
The camera enters the run-down
homes of the characters with the
familiarity of a neighbor, chronicling
seal its fate of being relegated to TV
or festival release.
By setting her film in Tin Shui
Wai, a suburban ghetto with a high
crime rate and a low-income immigrant majority, Hui revisits the ’80s
New Wave, when she made socialrealist TV dramas about Hong
Kong’s marginalized (Vietnamese
refugees, juvenile delinquents).
Though the township is labeled
“city of sadness” for domestic
tragedies
sensationalized
by
tabloids, Hui has countered this
image with protagonists who’d never make the news.
Kwai is a middle-aged widow who
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together. A natural in front of the
camera, she has a wealth of facial
expressions even in solo scenes with a
computer-generated figure. Zhang,
who wears a cheongsam tight enough
to moonlight in a hostess bar, never
stirs as a love interest.
“CJ7” revels in a cartoon-like
depiction of abject poverty with a
priceless scene where cockroach
swatting is an alternative to
PlayStation. However, such social
issues as education, employment
and inequality of wealth are glossed
over by slogan-like mottos of being
poor but virtuous. The storybook
ending is artificial and offers no
antidote to Ti and Dicky’s problems.
routines of household chores interspersed with birthdays and funerals.
Hui builds depth into her characters
largely through nuance, without
kitchen-sink drama and hardly any
emotive closeups. A casual comment
reveals the tremendous sacrifices
Kwai has made. Period photos of a
woman’s family portraits merge with
archival stills of a factory assembly
line — saluting a generation of
women who stoically contributed to
Hong Kong’s industrial boom of the
1970s. The mother remarks: “Life is
hard.” Kwai replies: “How hard can
it be?” The lightness of tone belies
the weight of experience.
Grounded in locality, the film
opens with closeups of Tin Shui
Wai’s Maipo Nature Reserve and
concludes with 1960s archival
footage of hundreds of families gathering at Victoria Park for a picnic at
Moon Festival. A panoramic shot of
festive lanterns dissolving into a
shower of lights, recalling Shen Fu’s
neo-realist “Lights of Ten Thousand
Homes,” suggesting Hui’s reconnection with the social conscience of
earlier Chinese cinema.
more reviews
Full reviews and
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at thr.com/hongkong
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day1_hk_p3, 6, 22 NEWS1
Day 1
3/16/08
8:49 PM
Page 22
news
Monday, March 17, 2008
Sundream
Continued from page 3—
movies. One of the reasons is that
the rental for property in HK is very
high so the exhibitors need to look
at the boxoffice and are very cautious,” Wong said.
And while Hong Kong has 197
screens, China has about 4,000,
providing greater options for distributors and an even greater incentive for Sundream to increase its
involvement in China.
“In the past two years, we sold
our films to Chinese distributors
and we enjoyed the revenue, but in
2008, instead of selling the movies
in China, we will be more actively
working with the distributor in
order to enjoy the benefits of the
China market,” said Tom Cheung,
Sundream’s vp business develop-
Lee
Continued from page 6—
laud the growing array of local film
festivals organized by cultural and
commercial organizations and for-
“We gain by pushing
each other for higher
standards in our selections. It is not conducive
to the local film-viewing
culture for HKIFF to
monopolize the market.”
— New festival director
Albert Lee
eign film councils for promoting
film culture in the territory.
“I welcome more film events in
Hong Kong. It is an interactive and
mutually beneficial process — as
more people watch and know more
about films, they will have higher
Celestial
Continued from page 3—
new subway system. It features a
galaxy of up-and-coming stars that
would go on to become the most
celebrated entertainers in the
region, including Leslie Cheung,
Anita Mui and Maggie Cheung.
One of the biggest Asian superstars of the 1980s and 1990s, Cheung achieved international fame
with his performance in Chen
Kaige’s “Farewell My Concubine”
(1992). He committed suicide on
April 1, 2003, aged 46. His friend
Big Media
ment.
“At the moment we are looking
at the major cities because they have
a higher consumption power, but if
we want to push up the market of
course some day we have to look
into the secondary cities,” Cheung
added.
On the production side, Sundream’s new film projects include
“The Champions,” a co-production
with Huayi Brothers, directed by
Siuming Tsui and set to begin
shooting at the end of March.
Also set to shoot this year is
Zhang Yi Bai’s “Lost, Indulgence”
and Cao Bao Ping’s “The Equator
of Love and Death.”
“The market of Hong Kong itself
is not big enough for us to produce
more diversified and stronger films,
so we have to look into a larger populated market,” Cheung said.
•
Continued from page 3—
commercial flicks to prestige pictures, with budgets between
HK$10 million and HK$100 million ($1.28 million and $12.8 million).
In line with the trend of Hong
Kong-China co-productions, onethird of the slate will be co-produced with Chinese studios.
“Butterfly Lovers,” the high-profile action-romance by director Jingle Ma, headlines the 2008 slate.
Charlene Choi (“Kung Fu Dunk”),
of the pop duo Twins, has replaced
her scandal-plagued groupmate
Gillian Chung to star with Taiwanese singer-actor Wu Chun in
the update of the oft-adapted folk
tale.
Other highlights include “Marriage With a Fool II,” the sequel to
the 2006 surprise hit starring swimmer-turned-pop star Alex Fong;
“Turandot,” director Ching Siutong’s action-fantasy; Louis Koo
starrer “The Kung Fu Couple” by
director Wilson Yip; and horrorcomedy “V for Vampire” by Vincent
Kok, featuring Sammo Hung and
Ronald Cheng.
Also in the pipeline are romantic
comedies “Roommate,” by director Joe Ma and singer-actress Gigi
Leung, and “Kill Bride”; Yang
Yazhou’s “Show Your Happy
Life,” featuring Jiang Wu and Gao
Yuanyuan; the provocatively titled
“Video the Love,” also starring
Gigi Leung; and “Scapegoat,” the
Xu Zheng comedy scheduled for
Chinese New Year season next
year.
Since unveiling the ambitious plan
to make 100 films in five years in
March 2007, the production shingle
has invested in 12 films, including
the Taiwan and Hong Kong chapters of the “Winds of September”
trilogy, which will make their world
premieres at the 32nd Hong Kong
International Film Festival.
“The implementation of the 100film plan has been going smoothly.
Apart from the 12 films produced,
expectations and want to see films
that are of a higher quality,” Lee
said. “We gain by pushing each other for higher standards in our selections. It is not conducive to the local
film-viewing culture for HKIFF to
monopolize the market.”
The organizers of the HKIFF
have also focused energy on raising
the festival’s international profile in
recent years, but Lee said overseas
publicity only serves to supplement
the person-to-person networking
the programmers have worked hard
on over the years.
Lee’s homecoming to the HKIFF
reminded him of the days when he
helped build up the festival from
scratch. “Being surrounded by a
group of young people invigorates
me and I’ve been enjoying myself
every day at work since I started,”
Lee said.
With a two-year contract with the
HKIFF society, he will oversee the
next two editions of the festival and
assist in finding his replacement. •
and frequent collaborator Mui,
who also starred with Cheung in
Stanley Kwan’s “Rouge” (1987),
died of cancer the same year at the
age of 40. Their deaths shocked
the Asian community and their
popularity persists to this day.
The company plans to release
more Shaw Brothers classics on
Blu-ray Disc to satisfy increased
demand for high-definition content, but has not specified titles or a
timetable.
Celestial Pictures, a subsidiary of
Malaysia’s Astro All Asia Networks,
owns the 760-title Shaw Brothers
film library.
•
HAF
Continued from page 3—
senting 25 projects that bring
together regional filmmakers and
international financiers in an
attempt to facilitate co-productions
and co-ventures.
HAF films will vie for five awards
totaling $41,000 in cash and
$30,000 of in-kind services and
products. Awards will be presented
on March 19.
Prominent titles include Ning
Hao’s “7 Dreams,” Nonzee Nimibutr’s “Secret of the Butterfly,” Cai
Shangjun’s “Adrift Time,” Hideo
Nakata’s “Gensenkan,” Park Chanwook’s “Thirst,” and Bong Joonho’s “Mother.”
Overall there are six films from
>>> MORE ONLINE >
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some projects had been delayed due
to scheduling conflicts,” Charley
Cheuk, executive director of Big
Media, told The Hollywood
Reporter. “The 100-film plan is an
investment proposal, not a heroic
promise. We have to adjust the plan
according to market needs and
risks.”
The company has also taken upon
itself to groom new talents in the
greater China region. As well as
launching an Asian distribution
“The 100-film plan is an
investment proposal, not
a heroic promise. We
have to adjust the plan
according to market
needs and risks.”
— Big Media executive
director Charley Cheuk
project to promote new directors
from Hong Kong, China and Taiwan, the company has also established an artist management division
to find and nurture new acting talents in the region.
The move corresponds to the
bold decision to jump-start the
careers of 30 newcomers in the Eric
Tsang-produced “Winds of September” trilogy, two films of which were
produced by Big Media. “Marriage
With a Fool II,” targeted at the local
youth market, also will showcase a
group of Big Media talents.
Though no longer an associate
company of Mei Ah Entertainment
Group, Big Media’s productions
will continue to be exclusively distributed by Mei Ah, which saw its
stake in Big Media drop to 2.3%
after the sale. The acquisition of
Big Media’s stake by Chinese
investor Wen will pose no impact
on the company’s operations,
Cheuk said.
“Mr. Wen had a full understanding of Big Media’s business plans for
the next few years before the purchase, and is confident of its development,” Cheuk said.
•
China, six from Hong Kong, four
from South Korea, three from Taiwan, three from Japan, two from
Thailand, one from Malaysia, one
from the Philippines, one from
Iran, and one from the United
Kingdom (several are co-productions representing more than one
region).
Past HAF projects have include Li
Yu’s “Lost in Beijing,” Kiyoshi
Kurosawa’s “Tokyo Sonata,” and
Kim Jee-woon’s “The Good, the
Bad and the Weird.”
HAF is organized by the Hong
Kong International Film Festival
Society, along with the Hong Kong
Trade Development Council and
the Hong Kong Kowloon & New
Territories Motion Picture Industry
Assn.
•
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day1_hk_p3, 6, 22 NEWS1
3/16/08
8:10 PM
Page 3
< Global Reports:
Hong Kong film, see page 13
France film, see page 17
g o
t o
T H R . c o m / h o n g
k o n g
a n d
T H R - a s i a . c o m
day
1
Dialogue
with Stephen Chow
page 10
M o n d a y, M a rc h 1 7 , 2 0 0 8
from Filmart
Big launch for Big Media
Mark Russell
Celestial
draws line
to Blu-ray
By Karen Chu
By Karen Chu
Celestial Pictures will release its
first Blu-ray Disc title in April, the
classic Leslie Cheung romantic
comedy “Behind the Yellow Line,”
to commemorate the fifth anniversary of his death, the company
announced Monday.
It marks Celestial’s first Shaw
Brothers release on the Blu-ray Disc
high-definition home entertainment format. As with previous
Shaw Brothers releases on DVD,
the film has been remastered. HD
DVD editions of more than half of
the released titles have been available since 2006.
“Line,” made in 1984, revolves
around a series of hide-and-seek
games played in Hong Kong’s thenSee CELESTIAL on page 22
HAF keeps eye
on young talent
By Mark Russell
HONG KONG — The Hong
Kong — Asia Film Financing
Forum (HAF) has grown into one
of the most dynamic and valued sections of the Hong Kong Filmart,
with many of Asia’s biggest filmmakers and most promising upand-comers entering their highly
anticipated new titles.
Now in its sixth edition, this
year’s HAF runs March 17-19, preSee HAF on page 22
Mei Ah unit
will unveil
15-pic slate
Up in the air
The conference floor on Sunday was abuzz with construction and setup
as attendees got ready for the official opening of the market today.
Hong Kong-based production
company Big Media is set to reinvigorate the Chinese-language market by launching a HK$250 million
($32 million) slate of 12-15 projects in Mandarin and Cantonese
this year.
Established as the production
arm of Hong Kong film and TV
group Mei Ah Entertainment, Big
Media has been detached from the
Mei Ah financial structure since the
sale of 21% of its stake to Chinese
investor Brandon Wen in January.
However, Big Media will continue
to utilize Mei Ah’s business network and subsidiaries in China and
Taiwan to foster co-productions
and promote the film industry in
the Greater China region.
To this end, Big Media is adapting a market segmentation strategy
to target markets in Hong Kong,
China, Taiwan and regions further
afield.
Its 2008 projects range from
See BIG MEDIA on page 22
Sundream, Weinstein ‘Visit’ output deal
By Saul Symonds
Sundream Motion Pictures is
embarking on an output deal with
the Weinstein Co. to release their
film and video titles in Hong Kong,
starting with “The Band’s Visit” on
April 10.
Sundream will release TWC’s
titles theatrically but also consider
release through parent company
iCable’s pay TV channels.
“The Band’s Visit” will open on
three Hong Kong screens, followed
by “Teeth” on 10 screens and
“Sicko” on two. All three have
screenings at the Hong Kong International Film Festival, which runs
from today through April 6.
According to Nan Wong, Sun-
dream’s GM of distribution, the
HKIFF screenings help to generate
word-of-mouth publicity among
the desired audience in a competitive exhibition environment dominated by Hollywood blockbusters.
“The current situation in Hong
Kong screen-wise is not really sufficient to support the release of
See SUNDREAM on page 22
DAY1_023_revNight
Day 1
3/16/08
4:52 PM
Page 23
reviews
Monday, March 17, 2008
‘Night and Day’
A
review
Hong Sangsoo film with no
onscreen sex? A male protagonist who can’t get any? This is
indeed a novelty for the Henry
Miller of Korean cinema, whose
characters fornicate more often
than martinis are shaken, not stirred
in Bond movies.
To the audience,
this is hardly an
aphrodisiac.
Set
almost
entirely in Paris,
“Night and Day”
BY
MAGGIE
is the auteur’s first
LEE
film made abroad.
Since Hong has
the bottom line been compared to
Tale of
Rohmer umpteen
exile’s frustration
and self-absorption times, what would
he make of Paris
not absorbing
enough.
cinematically? It’s
a bit like Hou
Hsiao-hsien’s approach to “Flight
of the Red Balloon” — impersonal
and therefore not terribly engaging.
A flippant description of Rohmer in
“Night Moves” seems apt for
Hong’s art-related film: “It was
kind of like watching paint dry.”
Hong has never bothered to court
the mainstream, so commercial market returns are hardly relevant.
t h r. c o m
Regardless of critics’
assertions of a change
in style, Hong’s core
group of intellectual
admirers will still find
pleasure in his cerebral film language,
nuanced dialogue and
droll observations of a
Korean abroad.
Sungnam
(Kim
Youngho), a painter,
spends two months in
exile in Paris to let a
legal crisis blow over.
He experiences the
double frustration of
separation from his
wife and not getting into any flings
there. He bumps into an old flame,
Minsun (Kim Youjin), and casually
dates her. But he gets cold feet when
her husband is mentioned. In a wry
scene, he reads a fire and brimstone
sermon to deter her advances. He
befriends art student Hyunjo but
falls for her flatmate and fellow artist
Yujeong (Park Eunhye).
They sit in countless cafes reenacting a fruitless flirtation to the
score of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, symbolized by an oyster meal
that is forever postponed. They
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make two trips to Deauville, and
here is where Hong seems most in
his element, in a sister town to the
charmless provincial seaside dives
where sexual mischief takes place in
his works.
The first kiss happens 90 minutes
into the film, and it’s 20 more minutes of mental dodgeball before an
inferred sex scene occurs. The
twist-within-a-twist at the end is
esoteric to say the least, revealing
that Hong is even more of a tease
than his heroine. This new chasteness might leave feminists who
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have complained about his projections of male fantasy without an ax
to grind. But in a Hong film, nothing is what it seems. Yujeon is not
who she pretends to be, and indiscreet male lust still has its way,
without the consequences all that
Bible-reading hinted at.
more reviews
Full reviews and
credits available
at thr.com/hongkong
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3/12/08 12:10:45 PM